Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Kiko's plight

I am sure many of us here have read Kiko Loureiro's recent guitar adventure or misadventure more like it. His LACS Ibanez guitar, together with a Nord keyboard went missing at the LA airport. The disturbing scenario- his baggage was found destroyed & empty, the rest of his gear went missing.

The thing about airports is that, they are clueless when such things happen. It's like the different entities at the airport worship a different management deity each & are not bound by a collective address. We understand the magnitude of airport operations but not having departments in sync with an integral procedure tells a lot about the organization.

This brings back memories of my recent post pertaining to Dave Carroll's plight in claiming damages for his broken Taylor 710CE after a gross mishandling by UA (CLICK to read). Another airport incident, another clueless group of people handling the matter- why is this happening to begin with? Aren't airports & airlines, because they are service oriented by nature, supposed to have a set of protocols to address the issue at the very least? It's like these group of people take pride in deflecting issues & have no obligations to associate themselves with possible liabilities because they are not in the chain of events leading to the matter. From this slant, we see them as being in the business for the money (our money) & it ends there.

Thusfar, Kiko's case included, things were settled amicably. There are people out there whose human touch arrests all discontent & brings the best out of conflicts. Both airports/airlines & passengers alike, addressing the issue should be priority. Emotional assault is understood but it's the least likely factor in solving problems. However, the initial bit in settling the matter is the most inert & rigid portion. People are confused, unwilling & see no incentive in helping out. Even Kiko himself had to initiate a personal proceeding before people started listening:

I have filed a claim reporting the theft but have yet to get an explanation as to what happened, so I am now forced to take the matters into my own hands.

Airlines & airports have a long way to go when it comes to baggage handling. It's not how much we paid for the service at the end of it all, it's about having humans at the helm rather than zombies doing the job. Humans don't throw others' property & damage stuff while performing assigned tasks. They respect property & are aware that people will be affected by their actions should they fall below par. It's also a timely reminder to the industry that social media will be at the ready to disrepute & hurt them where it bleeds the most- reputations & revenue. UA lost millions of dollars during the Dave Carroll saga lest we forget.